Stand Up
by Stratagem
Summary: Levi and Hanji's son fights back against some boys who think it's fun to harm defenseless animals.


Disclaimer: I don't own Attack on Titan!

A/N: Remy is 13, Ava is 8, Hanji and Levi are all for their son taking down jerks. Warning, people are mean to a puppy in this one!

* * *

Stand Up

"Do you have any coins left?"

"Nope, spent my last two on those blueberry tarts."

"Aw…"

Remy smirked over at his disappointed little sister. The two of them had spent the morning at the open air market near their house, looking at all of the goods and food that were for sale. Their part of town was mostly made up of military families and folks who worked for the government, so sales people and farmers came from all over to sell to them. Remy was in charge of keeping an eye on Ava and the majority of the money that their parents had given them. They were officially out buying ingredients for dinner, but they had been given a little extra pocket money to spend on themselves.

Ava had quickly spent all of hers on sweets and a tiny butterfly hairclip while Remy had used his to get a new tool for his kit and the blueberry tarts. They had the ingredients that they had bought for dinner and were carrying them back home in a couple bags.

"What would you buy if you had something left?" Remy asked, glancing at Ava, "Another hair clip?"

"No, I wanna get one of those," she said, pointing at a stall to their left. Puppets were strung up by thin white strings across the top of the stall, their dull eyes staring at Remy. Now he was seriously glad that they didn't have any money yet.

"Those are creepy."

"Are not, they're funny. I think I'd be a good puppeteer."

"I'll make you one then. A not so freakish one," Remy said. He was good at carving, or you know, he could probably create one out of scrap metal and leather. There was a lot of that laying around the smith shops and tanneries over near the barracks, and they always let him have their extras.

"I like those, though."

Remy wasn't going to argue with her anymore. The point was moot anyways, seeing how they were out of all of their money. He kept walking, which forced Ava to either keep up with him or get left behind. She wavered for a moment in front of the stall of creepy puppets and then trudged after him, dragging her feet with every step.

"Don't pout."

"I'm noooot," Ava said, her tone definitely leaning toward whiny. She wouldn't have tried that tone with their parents, but Remy was a different story. Not that she whined a lot, seeing how it was pretty much useless in their house, but Remy sometimes gave into it just to make her be quiet. Today, however, he simply ignored her.

The two of them made their way out of the market, weaving between adults and horses and wagons, heading for home. Ava's bad mood slowly dropped away the farther they went. She wasn't the kind of person to cling to unhappiness, so shifting from being annoyed to being rather neutral was easy for her.

They were on the edge of the marketplace, about to move onto the street proper, when a yelp caught Remy's ears. It wasn't a human yelp, instead it sounded like an animal in pain. Remy stopped, making Ava bump into his back.

"Hey…"

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?" she asked, looking around.

Again, something yelped, high-pitched and terrified, and the siblings looked at each other. They had definitely both heard it that time. The two of them took off running, racing toward the pathetic sound. Ava tried to keep up with Remy, but he dashed into the alleyway before she did, and he reached out to grab her before she could move beyond him.

Crouched down in the alleyway were three boys around Remy's age and between them was a little brown and white puppy with matted, dirty fur. Blood dripped from a scratch over its eyes, and it whimpered as one of the boys poked it with a rusty old piece of metal.

"Hey," Remy said in a clear and cold voice, grabbing their attention. The three boys looked up and then two of them went back to torturing the puppy, grabbing its tail and pulling it back and forth. The one with the metal stick stood up, glaring back at Remy and Ava.

"Get lost," the boy said.

"Leave that dog alone!" Ava shouted, stamping one of her booted feet.

The boys all laughed and one pulled on the puppy's tail hard enough to make it yelp again. "And what're you going to do if we don't?" the boy with the stick asked, his head tilting to the side.

"I'll punch you on the nose and kick you in the stomach," Ava said, lifting her chin.

Beside her, Remy reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "I've got this," he said, his tone icy and firm, "Stay here." He left Ava's side and walked toward the other boy, his steps measured and confident. The amount of surety in his movements made the boy with the stick take a slight step backward while the other two boys looked up again.

"There's three of us and one of you," the idiot commented.

"I can count," Remy said softly.

"And if you could count too, you snot-eating mud faced freak, you'd see there's two of us!" Ava declared, her fists on her hips.

"You're too shrimpy to count," one the others said with a laugh. He reached out and snatched up the puppy by the scruff of its neck, holding it up. "You want it? Come get it!"

That was obviously what he already intended to do. Remy didn't speed up. He continued to walk at a slow, steady, determined pace toward the trio, a slight tension in his face betraying the fact that he was gearing up for a fight.

When the stick-wielding boy moved forward again, Remy suddenly dashed forward, agile and dangerous. He swept under the boy's stick and smashed his foot into the boy's kneecap, sending him to the ground with a scream. Silently, Remy raced forward, catching the other two off guard.

He sprang at the first boy, landing a punch on his nose with an audible crunch. The boy reeled backward, clutching his bleeding nose. The left the third and final boy standing there, holding the puppy.

"Freak!" the boy shouted at Remy and dropped the dirty, injured puppy on the cobblestones, "It's just a dog."

"It didn't do anything to you!" Ava yelled from the end of the alleyway.

The boy lashed out as Remy's attention flickered toward the puppy and Ava, and he caught him on the cheek, a ring on his hand cutting open Remy's face. Blood dribbled from the cut, making Ava gasp.

"Remy!"

"Stay back," he said, squaring off with the third boy.

Aa ignored him and ran toward them, not noticing when the third boy reached down and grabbed a stone from the street. He hauled back, about to throw it at her, but Remy caught his arm and forced it down and behind his back.

"I told you to stay there," Remy said to Ava. He tugged on the boy's arm, making him cry out.

"Let go!"

"We need to take it home," Ava said, dropping down and picking up the puppy. Their dad was going to lose it when he saw them with the scruffy mutt and Remy's blood-stained shirt, but he would get over it.

"Get out of here," Remy said, releasing the boy, "And don't let me catch you torturing anything else."

The three boys took off, scrambling to get away from Remy and out of the alleyway. Ava looked up at Remy's wound and bit her lip. "You need to get that cleaned up."

"I'll fix it when we get home," he said. He glanced down at the puppy in her arms. "Don't get too attached to that. Dad's never going to let us keep it."

"I'm naming it Erugian," she said, "That's the name of a scientist back a long time ago."

Oh fantastic, she'd named it already. Now how were they supposed to get rid of it. Remy wiped his hand across the bleeding scratch on his cheek and headed back down the alleyway, Ava following after him with the puppy.

When they turned up at home, they had the misfortune of finding their father home already. Levi's expression had gone from neutral to dark and protective in an instant. He dragged them inside and sent Ava to wash the mutt puppy while he tended to Remy's busted cheek in the kitchen. Remy told him what happened succinctly, giving him the summarized version.

"This is going to scar," Levi said as he dabbed at the wound with a wet cloth.

"Yeah," Remy said. He hissed as Levi used disinfectant on the cut before patting it with the cloth again. "Think it'll look good?"

"No," Levi said, but there was a certain amount of approval in his voice that made Remy warm inside. Levi reached out and grasped his son's shoulder. "You did the right thing." It was quiet and terse, but there was pride in that statement, enough to embarrass Remy.

He rolled his shoulders and gave his dad a half-smile. "Ava's going to want to keep the dog."

"She can't. That mutt has to go."

"She named it."

"Hell." In their family, when Hanji or Ava named something, that was the end of it. Names equaled ownership.

There was no way that dog was going anywhere now.


End file.
